


Solace

by Laburnum



Category: Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Genre: M/M, Raistlin Chronicles Era, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:26:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17031939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laburnum/pseuds/Laburnum
Summary: To be a twin is to be one half of a shared soul, and this is what Raistlin had not seen: that Caramon needs him too.





	Solace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tonepoem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonepoem/gifts).



 

Spring in Solace arrives in a warm sunrise, sparse birdcalls at dawn and patches of green amidst yesterday’s snow. The magic school’s winter boarding-house lets out today and by the time Raistlin struggles out of his tiny nest of thin blankets, the dormitory is all but deserted, the other boys long fled from the school’s stifling confines for the comforts of home.

Raistlin gathers his possessions and drags his small case out to the dusty road outside the school. The farmer’s cart is already there waiting for him, the farmer himself sitting up front with a hat over his eyes, while Caramon leans against the wall of the schoolhouse with his eyes screwed up against the morning sun. He’s grown yet again in the few months Raistlin has been away, gained yet another few inches in height, and his shoulders strain the seams of a now too-small shirt. But his face still breaks into the same broad smile as he catches sight of Raistlin and starts walking over; his eyes are still painfully honest, he’s still the brutish brother Raistlin knows. It makes Raistlin despair; now that they are both turning nineteen, there’s not enough growth left between the two of them for Raistlin to ever catch up. But he has known all along that it would be like this.

Caramon tosses Raistlin’s things in back like they weigh nothing and then helps Raistlin into the cart. “You’re very red,” he observes and brushes rough fingers against Raistlin’s cheeks, the pads warm in the aftermath of the spring wind’s biting cold; honey-warm eyes rake Raistlin’s face. “Are you sick?”

“Just the cold,” Raistlin says, averting his eyes, and pulls his scarf up over his nose to hide the evidence.

In the back of the farmer’s cart, their shoulders knock with every bump in the road. It’s an hour to Solace and Caramon fills him in on the goings-on in town, how Mother is doing so much better. Raistlin’s dislike for the Widow Judith has not abated, but if only for Mother’s sake he is reluctantly grateful to her...

 

 

 

That summer, Raistlin sees the path of his life crystallize before him.

He can still feel the phantom warmth of Miranda’s hand in his, the lightness of her step alongside his on the dusty path and the fall of her hair around her beautiful face. He had spent only brief minutes with her earlier that afternoon, but the gentle spring sunlight had illuminated a path he had never imagined before. For the first time in his life, he had imagined that he could have an ordinary life; he had imagined that he could be an ordinary man who took a wife and plied a trade. That he could want, and be wanted in return.

Now, beneath the clear cold moonlight, the thought sickens him. What he had forgotten is that he _is_ not someone who can have a normal life. He cannot run away from what he is. The Sly One. The Sneak. That is all anyone will ever think of him.

It is like waking from a deep sleep and it makes him sick.

The shape of his house appears before him and he turns over the concept of home in his mind. Through the dirty window he sees the flicker of a fire in the hearth, Caramon’s hulking outline as he sits at the chair nearest the door and Raistlin thinks, _Let him wait._

Raistlin turns his key in the door and Caramon jumps up at the sound, the wooden chair he had been sitting in scraping audibly as Raistlin pushes open the door. “Raist! Where have you been? I was worried sick—“

“Have you, now.” Raistlin had prepared a half-truthful explanation for his absence but now it dies in his throat, replaced by a terrible impulse to hurt and injure. For the second time that day he curses his flesh and its propensity to emotions he cannot control. He pulls the door shut behind him and turns around to find Caramon too close, one hand outstretched like he wants to touch Raistlin yet is worried to do so.

“What do you mean, Raist? Of course I have—“

With a word and a sidelong glance, Raistlin lights the candle on the table. The scent of melting wax rises into the air, the sphere of the candle flame flickers in the edge of Raistlin’s vision. He looks up to meet Caramon’s eyes and no longer bothers with restraint. “You were with her,” Raistlin says, controlled calm with an undercurrent of rage.

“Who…”

Raistlin knows the series of emotions that will flit across his brother’s face before Caramon even feels them. Confusion, then understanding, then pride, then consternation. Realization dawns on Caramon’s face Raistlin checks them off one by one, triumph suffocating him like a bubble waiting to burst.

“Miranda? Yeah, I spent time with her tonight, but what’s…” Raistlin can almost see the cogs turning behind Caramon’s eyes as he tries to puzzle out what is wrong. They had conversed about her only that afternoon; _surely he will remember_ , Raistlin thinks, and for once Caramon does not fail Raistlin’s expectations. “… You like her, Raistlin. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

So very, very close to the truth. “No, you imbecile,” Raistlin murmurs. From close up he studies his brother’s expression, observes, assesses. Caramon’s eyes are bright, a little uncertain, a little worried.

Not for the first time, Raistlin does not understand. Simple as Caramon is, he seems also made up of contradictions. Raistlin wonders how he can make love to a girl and forget her just as quickly—for all his concern is Raistlin’s now, all his attention, all his bright presence that had endeared him to all of Solace. Raistlin wonders what promises his brother had made to that girl just to get her clothes off, how many of them were lies—how many of the things he had said to _Raistlin_ over the years were lies without him even realizing it. It makes Raistlin wonder which of them he had really been jealous of and then he puts the thought away, stands on his toes, encircles his arms around Caramon’s neck and leans up to kiss him.

Caramon’s lips part slightly beneath Raistlin’s insistence, his breath warm against Raistlin’s face. His  hands tighten around Raistlin’s shoulders and push, putting just enough space between them that he can meet Raistlin’s eyes and Raistlin glances quickly away, cheeks burning with sudden sharp self-hatred. He hears Caramon speaking, as if from a distance, “I thought a lot of things, Raist, but I didn’t think it would be this.”

Raistlin has not had a lot of time to think. He had expected horror, disappointment, disgust but he does not expect _delight_ , does not expect Caramon to smile or reach up with one big hand and run his thumb over Raistlin’s cheek again, rough and warm. “You’re cute like this. I’m happy I’m the one who gets to see it.”

“You want this?” Raistlin repeats in disbelief.

“Didn’t know till now,” Caramon breathes and draws Raistlin in again. He brings one hand to the back of Raistlin’s head, fingers dragging painfully through Raistlin’s hair as he presses Raistlin to him. Caramon can be so thoughtless even as he is so caring, but precisely because of that, he will not begrudge Raistlin this.

What is wanted, what is needed, what is given and taken without shame. Raistlin folds away the irrelevant things, focuses on the movement of Caramon’s mouth against his own as he spreads his hands over his brother’s chest. Part of Raistlin wants to leave him as ruined as Raistlin himself had felt earlier that night. Another part of Raistlin, the one who holds the name Majere to his heart like a warm coal in winter and who has been comforted by shadow rabbits dancing by firelight, only leans into his brother’s hands and wishes for them to warm him.

“You’re thinking,” Caramon says, breath hot and sweet against Raistlin’s lips. “Raist, I never know what you’re thinking—“

“No need to know. Even if I told you you’d never understand it.” Just the weakness of the flesh and nothing more.

Caramon shifts uncomfortably below him. “Raist, should we go somewhere—“

Raistlin makes a muffled noise and shakes his head no. Mother is in her room, not quite asleep and not quite awake, drifting in the gray sea of her trances that will one day drown her. Father is no longer around, and the Widow Judith has gone home for the night. Outside they could be interrupted by anyone but in here they are safe – trapped – alone. Caramon only groans in response, a low rumble in his throat that shakes Raistlin’s entire body, and Raistlin stops thinking at all.

He backs Caramon into the wall, relishing the way his brother’s weight yields to his momentum; sinks to his knees as Caramon’s hands find purchase against the wood at his back. He unlaces Caramon’s breeches and lets them fall, lets his hands wander over every inch of Caramon’s skin. His brother’s cock is half-hard, still damp from his earlier activities. The familiar emotions bubble up in Raistlin—disgust, animosity, rage—but by now he has learned that there are better ways to win. He wants to wipe every trace of Miranda from his brother’s skin and his brother’s memories and replace them with himself, as they rightfully should be.

He patiently strokes his brother’s cock to fullness, then spits into his hands, moves his head forward to take the tip in into his mouth and wraps slender fingers around the base; slides his lips over Caramon’s length and follows the motion with his hands, swirls his tongue over the tip. He is not a stranger to this; winter boarding at Master Theobald’s magic school are miserable encounters of too-close quarters and cabin fever and Jon Farnish was all Raistlin had, the one person in the whole school who could possibly have come close to understanding Raistlin and being understood in return. But the sex was mediocre and far too lacking and now that Raistlin is home, for a certain definition of the word, he knows what was missing.

 

He sucks on Caramon’s cock one last time, tasting bitterness, then reaches for the pouch at his belt, pulls out the vial of medicinal oil he keeps beside the drawstring bag of rose petals. He hands it to Caramon who uncorks it, sniffs with a wary sort of interest, then slicks his fingers generously with it. With his other hand he helps Raistlin up, holds Raistlin close as Raistlin undoes his own breeches and lets them fall; draws his hand up the inside of Raistlin’s thigh until he finds Raistlin’s entrance; goes no farther, and it is driving Raistlin to madness.

“Raist, can I—“

 “Do it. And you don’t have to be gentle.”

Caramon goes slow anyway, because Caramon never really _listens_ to exactly what Raistlin says; presses one finger in, then another, and Raistlin thinks his brother might have been right after all because he momentarily cannot breathe, twists his hips in an attempt to accommodate the intrusion as Caramon pushes deeper; braces himself against the wall with one forearm and jerks himself with the other.

. “—you sure you’re okay, Raist?”

“ _Do it,_ ” Raistlin hisses urgently, and then has to bite down on his lip to keep from crying out when Caramon pulls his fingers free, grips Raistlin’s hips harder as he lines up his cock and pushes in. he can do nothing but dig his nails into Caramon’s shoulder Raistlin has to hold back a cry, bites down so hard on his lower lip he draws blood. Caramon notices him turn his head away; with his other hand he reaches up to his face and swipes a thumb gently across the wound. Another intimacy among many. Just as all of Raistlin is bound up in Caramon, all of Caramon is bound up in Raistlin. To be a twin is to be one half of a shared soul, and this is what Raistlin had not seen: Caramon needs him too.

 “—gods, Raist—“

This is how Caramon loves, physical and true. Golden light that illuminates the empty house of Raistlin’s heart, lays the stubbornly empty corners bare before the world to see. Raistlin does not want to be seen, would rather put his spellbooks in a closet and shut the door, but Caramon has also seen it all before: Raistlin cowering before the bigger boy who had struck him on school grounds, Raistlin’s body burning hot with the flush of fever as Kitiara tends him. Raistlin’s weakness, Raistlin’s isolation and resentment. Caramon has seen it all, and Caramon loves him anyway.

Raistlin comes into his own hands with a strangled gasp, and Caramon holds him as he rides out his release; pulls out and jerks himself off efficiently while Raistlin tries to put himself back together. Raistlin hears his brother’s low keen and sharp exhale of breath as he comes, feels the tension leave his brother’s body next to him, his arm falling against Raistlin’s side as he breathes heavily.

Raistlin curls up on the floor, dimly registering Caramon standing up and going somewhere. Already, he feels lost without Caramon’s solid warmth by his side; now that the heat of lust is sated, beneath that is only confusion and a stabbing helplessness. Blood binds and blood betrays, and Caramon will not be with him always. One day Caramon will let go of Raistlin’s hand, and Raistlin will fall to the jaws of the death that should have come for him long ago.

He is still adrift when Caramon returns and shakes him gently. Caramon has fetched water and a damp cloth, and he cleans Raistlin up, then himself, discards the basin to the side of the room and sits on the floor by Raistlin’s side. He pulls Raistlin’s head in his lap and absently strokes his hair. If it were any other time at all Raistlin would shy away faster than a rabbit, but today of all days, the touch is bearable.

Caramon murmurs into Raistlin’s hair, “I don’t know what just happened, Raist, but it – it was good, wasn’t it?”

And Raistlin thinks: there it is, again and always, the uncrossable chasm between him and his twin. Sword and shadow. Outside the window, the silent night is broken by a cicada’s cry. In one of Raistlin’s books is written: They do not know they are about to die.

 

 

 

 


End file.
